The decision to classify the Nabataean city of Madain Saleh as a World Heritage Site is no small triumph for Saudi Arabia. It enables a story to be told about the region's history, a story far richer than the one imagined by so many people, not just abroad but at home as well. Saudi Arabia is, of course, the cradle of Islam, and contains the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. But beyond that, Saudi Arabia is seen in many quarters as a country without a history. Even Saudis and expatriates living and working in the Kingdom fall into the trap of seeing it as such. The massive developments on the back of the first oil boom in the 1970s and now the more recent one, the love affair with the latest in technology, architecture, fashion and design, and the complete parallel disinterest in the past are to blame. The result has been that anything old has been bulldozed or allowed to fall into decay. One needs only to go and have a look at the ruins of old Riyadh or old Jeddah to see the sad reality. Abroad too, the image still is of a land which, not long ago held nothing but sand, is now bristling with construction sites thanks to the bounty of oil.
The image is, of course, not entirely inaccurate. But the reality is much more complex. The truth is that the land that is Saudi Arabia is rich not only in oil but in heritage as well. It is far from being an archaeological desert. The country is home to hundreds of ancient sites, some dating back 5,000 years, many of them barely explored. The incense road from Yemen, and trade routes between India and China to the Mediterranean world made ancient Arabia a land of rich towns and cities, some of which were only finally abandoned in the past hundred years.
Among this archaeological treasury -- which includes such places as Najran, Qariya Al-Faw, Al-Ula, Tayma, Dumat Al-Jandal, the island of Tarut in the Arabian Gulf and the early Islamic city of Ar-Rabadha some 200 km east of Madinah (to mention a very few) -- Madain Saleh is not only an architectural gem but is a historical one as well. The Jordanian city of Petra -- the "rose red city, half as old as time" -- is well known worldwide; Madain Saleh is its twin and, with its monumental tombs, equally deserving of international appreciation and recognition. Now it has both. That recognition, moreover, challenges preconceptions in the wider world about the Arabs in history.
Few tend to think of Arabs before the rise of Islam other than as desert tribesmen living beyond the frontiers of civilization. But Madain Saleh shows the Nabataeans, a pre-Islamic Arab society whose territory stretched from Syria to the Red Sea and whose script is among the forerunners of the modern Arabic one, were civilized. And Madain Saleh, unlike Petra, was not conquered by the Romans. The site is the first in the Kingdom to be classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Others deserve the same status; the old cities of Riyadh and Jeddah and the ruins at Najran being the most obvious. That recognition will come and with it will come tourists as much interested in the country's past as its present. Perhaps most important of all, the recognition and the tourists will come because of changed attitudes within the Kingdom.
The addition of Madain Saleh to the World Heritage list is not only a recognition by the international authorities of Saudi Arabia's heritage; it is a recognition by Saudi Arabia of that heritage and a commitment to it. Without a Saudi plan to preserve, manage and protect Madain Saleh, UNESCO would not have listed it. That is new and it is most welcome.
© Arab News 2008
